Capacitance and Inductance Sensors for Location of Open and

Short Circuited Wires

You Chung Chung* (Senior Member), Nirmal N. Amarnath, Cynthia M. Furse (Senior Member), John
Mahoney
**
(Member)
* Corresponding author
University of Utah
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
50 S Campus Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
Phone: (801) 554-2555
youchung@ece.utah.edu

** The Boeing Company, St. Louis, MO

Abstract
The location of an open or short circuited wire is linearly proportional to the capacitance
or inductance of the wire, respectively. Several types of simple and inexpensive circuits to
measure these values were tested and found to have highly variable performance. Open circuited
(capacitance) measurements are very effective. Short circuited (inductance) measurements are
more difficult, and not all of the circuits worked well for short circuits. A 555 timer circuit was
found to have the best overall performance for locating both open and short circuited wires,
although for specific cases, other circuits can be better. Also, capacitance and inductance values
of various types of aircraft wires are measured and verified with analytical equations.

Key Words: Capacitance and Inductor Sensor, Aging Aircraft Wire Fault Detection, Wire Fault
Detection.

I. INTRODUCTION:
2
Aging wiring has been identified as an area of critical national concern [1]. Miles of
aging wires are buried inside virtually all of the major structures and systems with which we are
familiar. Wiring is pervasive from private, commercial and military aircraft to the space shuttle,
modest homes to massive skyscrapers, communication networks for business, entertainment,
data collection, and control of critical systems, over land power lines to nuclear reactors and
power plants, trains, warning systems, and switching stations to ships, dockyards, cranes, and
autonomous loading systems, and even down to the simple family car. As these buried wires
age they may begin to crack and fray, or their connectors may break, corrode, leak or be
damaged in careless maintenance.
Detecting and locating these faults is extremely important, and there are several existing
and emerging methods for doing this. The most common method of testing cables is to measure
the resistance from end-to-end [2]. This method can be used to identify cold solder joints, bad
crimps, carbonization of the cable or connectors, and foreign matter on or near the cables. This
method can be used on a fueled airplane (unlike high voltage tests), but it is hard to pinpoint the
fault locations. In addition, it is difficult to miniaturize and is expensive.
Time domain reflectometry (TDR) launches a short rectangular step of voltage down the
cable. The wave travels to the far end of the cable, where it is reflected back at the end of the
cable. TDR requires a fast-rise time pulse generator and fast voltage sampler to detect the
reflected signal, and it is also costly and difficult to miniaturize. [2-8].
Frequency domain reflectometry (FDR, also called Swept Frequency Reflectometry
sends a set of stepped-frequency sine waves down the wire. The waves travel to the end of the
cable and are reflected back to the source. The reflected waves are analyzed. FDR systems
include Standing Wave Reflectometry (SWR) systems [9, 10], and Phase Detection Frequency
3
Domain Reflectometry (PD-FDR) systems [2, 11-13]. Reflectometry methods are highly
effective for locating faults, particularly open and short circuits, however they are more difficult
to analyze than the capacitance methods described in this paper, are more expensive, require
more power, and are bulkier.
Spread spectrum reflectometry [14-15] sends a pseudo-noise (PN) code down the wire
and correlates with the returned reflection to determine the location of a fault. The digital PN
code appears as random noise to the existing signal, therefore enabling the system to test the
wires while they are live and potentially in flight [16].
Capacitance measurements have been used for locating open circuits on cables [17],
however previous literature has not discussed how to locate short circuited wires. The
capacitance of an open circuited wire and inductance of a short circuited wire are linearly
proportional to their lengths. There are numerous methods of measuring capacitance, which are
compared in this paper. A 555 timer circuit, for instance, has been utilized to detect the length of
an open circuited wire [17].
Capacitance sensors are used for a variety of applications. They can be used to measure
and detect the presence of a dielectric material or human [18, 19], humidity and water content
[20, 21], micro imaging [22], position measurement, angular position and angular speed
measurement [23-29], liquid level [30], pressure and temperature measurements [31, 32]. A
capacitance sensor is a very simple and small device often built from one IC chip. Tests are made
from one end of the wire.
Many different methods haven been introduced to convert the capacitance value into a
voltage and use the capacitance sensor as motion, position or pressure sensor [33-36]. Most
methods are not accurate enough to handle very small variations in capacitance that are required
4
for location of wire faults to within a few inches. Reference [37] introduces an interface circuit to
measure very small capacitance changes with a double difference principle using active
rectifiers, a low pass filter and an analog-to-digital converter. Reference [38] shows a circuit of
the differential capacitance to voltage converter using a current detector and AM demodulation
circuit. It is accurate, albeit and complicated.
This paper shows the performance of three capacitance sensors that can be used to locate
open and/or short circuits on wires. Two major capacitance sensors (Differential amplifier and
555 Timer) can locate both open and shorted circuits. Any conductor has a capacitance with
respect to ground or another conductor. The capacitance will depend on the area and physical
shape of the conductors and the permittivity of the dielectric separating the conductors from
ground. A long wire can be thought of as a series of these localized capacitors, and the bulk
capacitance of an open circuited wire is directly proportional to its length. Similarly short-
circuited wires behave like a series of inductances at low frequencies, and the bulk inductance is
directly proportional to the length.
Section II describes and summarizes the capacitance and inductance of thirteen different
wire types, and the results of several different circuits (Two Inverter Oscillator, difference
amplifier and 555 timer) for measuring the length of open and short circuited wires using
capacitance and inductance. Section III summarizes the capabilities of these sensors and future
work.

II. Capacitance and Inductance of Wire and Sensors
5
When designing sensors to measure the length of wire based on its capacitance or
inductance, it is important to understand the range and variation of these values for realistic wire
types. The section describes these values both analytically and experimentally.
The capacitance value C of any two conductors is based on the distance between the
conductor and ground (d), the area of the conductor (S), and the permittivity (=
r

0
,
0
=
8.854E-12 F/m) of the dielectric separating the conductors.
r
is the relative permittivity to the
permittivity of air
0
. For two parallel plates, the well-known equation for capacitance is given
in equation (1).

d
S
C = (1)
The capacitance and inductance values of parallel insulated wires have been modeled and
calculated [39-42]. For two circular parallel conductors (round wires) the capacitance and
inductance are given by:

|
.
|

\
|
=

d
D
C
1
cosh

(Farads) (2)
L = ( ) d D/ cosh
1

for high frequency, (Henries) (3)

L= ( )] / cosh 4 / 1 [
1
d D

for low frequency (Henries) (4)

where d is the diameter of the conductors, and D is the distance between the centers of the
conductor and is the permittivity of the insulation. is magnetic permeability of the dielectric
(=
r

0
,
0
= 4-7 H/m).
r
is the relative permeability.
r
and
r
of polyethylene are about
0.994~1.0017 and 2.5~2.7, respectively.
6
Twisted pair wire has about 20% greater capacitance than simple parallel wire due to
extra length from the twists [40]. This capacitance is given by:
C
Total
=


+
+

+
|
.
|

\
|

b
a
r
r
b
a x d
x D D
dx
x d D
dx
d
D

2 2
2 2
0
2 2
0
1
0
) 0 . 1 / 0 . 1 (
cosh
(F) (5)
Capacitance and inductance values of coaxial cable are
C =
( ) a b / ln
2
(F) (6)
L=
( )
(

|
|
.
|

\
|

+ +
b
c
b c
c
c b
b c a
b
ln
4
3
4
1
4
1
ln
2
2 2
4
2 2
2 2

(H) (7)
where a is the radius of inner conductor, and b and c are the inner and outer radii of the shield
[41, 42]. is the permittivity of insulator between the inner conductor and the shield.
Figure 1 shows the capacitance values of thirteen different open circuited aircraft wires as
a function of. length measured using an HP4262A LCR meter. Table 1 gives the specifics on the
type of wires, military part numbers, and the measured capacitance and inductance per unit
length for each wire. Figure 2 shows the inductance values of the same wires when short
circuited. The coaxial cable is seen to have the largest capacitance per unit length followed by
shielded twisted pair cable. Capacitance of parallel individual wire (single wire) is similar to
twisted pair cable, but slightly lower. Among the same type of wire, the thicker wire (lower
gauge) has larger capacitance per unit length. The lowest capacitance value is found from the
single parallel wires in a bundle, since the distance between the wires is small. Within a bundle
of wires (often 20-150 wires), the capacitance and inductance could vary due to the wire not
staying in the same part of the bundle, and therefore varying the distance between two wires
forming a test pair. This was found not to be large, however. Variations of about 4pF out of
7
350pF and 0.01uH out of 9.20uH for 392 inch (9.95 m) long M22759/16-22-90 in a bundle of 20
wires was measured.
Figure 2 shows the measured inductance value of these same wire types when they are
short circuited. The coaxial cable has the least inductance per unit length. In Figures 1 and 2, it
can be seen that a wire with higher capacitance value has lower inductance value. Three different
types of shorts, a simple short at the end, a short in the middle of the length wire with the ends
left open and shorts in both the middle and the ends, were measured. The inductance value with
the short in the middle of the wire with the ends left open shows the same value as when there
are no ends. This is good (and expected), because it means that the additional lengths of wire do
not corrupt the measurement to the short.
Clearly the capacitance and inductance can be used to measure the length of wires and
the distance to faults. There are numerous circuits for measuring these values [43], they are not
all equally effective. The following section discusses the capabilities, advantages and
disadvantages of several types of capacitance sensors.

III. Capacitance and Inductance Sensors
Sensors for measuring capacitance and inductance can be broadly divided into two
categories. One type of sensor uses the wire as an inductive or capacitive element in a resonator
circuit. The two inverter oscillator, difference amplifier and 555 timer sensors are only
introduced here for brevity and page limit. Another set of sensors uses the capacitance or
inductance of the wire as an impedance and measures the voltage drop between various
impedances in the circuit. The voltage divider is an example of this class of sensor. Some
circuits are more susceptible to stray capacitances or inductances, are more or less accurate, have
8
ranges of measurement that are more or less effective, and in general work better for measuring
wire length or distance to fault than other methods.

1. Two Inverter Oscillator Sensor
A two inverter oscillator is a stable multi-vibrator [44]. It consists of two inverters and an
RC network, as shown in Figure 3. The output of each inverter is either logic 0 or logic 1, each
corresponding to a fixed voltage. The input v1 can vary slowly between certain limits, because it
is the voltage of the insulated gate. No current flows into the input. The only possible current
path is between nodes v2 and v0. When v1 is logic 1, v2 and v0 will be logic 0 and logic 1,
respectively. Then v1 is greater than the inverter switching voltage. The voltage across R
produces a current i, which charges the capacitor, in our case the wire, causing v
c
to rise. Thus v1
drops. When it is below the inverter switching voltage, the inverters switch states. The
respective logic levels of v2 and v0 are now 1 and 0. The current i reverses, and v
c
drops until v1
rises above the inverter switching voltage. Then the inverters again switch states. Hence the
circuit functions as an oscillator.
The frequency output of this oscillator can be estimated using the expression:


Open circuit:
Without C F (Hz) = 1 / (5* C
w
*R) (8)
With C F (Hz = (C
w
+ C) / ( 5*C* C
w
*R ) (9)
Short circuit:
With C F (Hz) = ( 1+ L
w
*C
w
) / ( 5*R*C
w
) (10)

where C is the reference capacitance, C
w
is the capacitance due to the open circuited wire, and
L
w
is the inductance due to the shorted wire.
9
Without the capacitor C, the circuit can locate only open circuits. Short circuited wires
would short out the oscillator. The hot wire lead should be connected in a feedback loop
between one of the inverters and the resistor. The wire that acts as the return path for current is
connected between the resistor and the input of the other inverter as shown. The frequency of
the output voltage Vo is linear with the length of the wire, so the location of the open and short
circuit can be estimated as shown in Figure 4. To locate a short-circuit, the inductance due of the
wire is measured relative to the reference capacitance C, as shown in Figure 3.
Values chosen for the oscillator are R = 1 k and V
cc
above 3.2 V for the 74LS04 IC
used. The capacitor C (which is 50 pF in this case) limits the range of the sensor to 6 m for
short circuits. As with the three-gate oscillator, changing C changes the minimum measurable
length. The sensor output is very sensitive to the supply voltage, so a well-regulated voltage is
required. To test a longer short circuited wire, a larger capacitance is required. Also the output
frequency ranges of both the open and short overlap, so that another test or a priori knowledge
about whether the load is an open or short is required.

2. Difference Amplifier for Open and Short Circuits
A non-inverting or inverting operational amplifier circuit has a gain defined by the
feedback resistor (R
f
). The relationship between input and output is:
V
o
(V) = (1 + (R
f
/R))*V
in


For this circuit, the input voltage limits the circuits performance. The change in output voltage
due to change in capacitance is very small in certain cases, when compared to the input voltage.
Also if the impedance is complex or purely imaginary, the calculations needed to estimate the
unknown impedance become complicated. These limitations can be overcome, and the circuit
10
can be made simpler and very sensitive to small changes in capacitance with the use of a voltage
follower and a differential amplifier (subtractor) as shown in the Figure 5.
In this circuit if Z is complex, i.e. if the impedance is not real, the output signal V
o
is also
complex. Thus, both the magnitude and phase of the output signal have to be measured. The
voltage output of the amplifier is given by equation (11). As the amplifier output is fed to the
non-inverting terminal of the differential amplifier (subtractor) and the voltage follower output
(which is the same as the input voltage) is fed to the inverting terminal of the differential
amplifier, the final output (12) can be derived as shown below.
Open circuit:
Without Capacitor V
o
(V) =[ (1 + (R
f
/Z))*V
in
] - V
in

V
o
(V) = (R
f
/Z)*V
in
(11)
Z =(V
in
/V
o
) * R
f
(12)
With Capacitor V
o
(V) = (V
in
* R
f
* * C* C
w
) / (C
w
+ C) (13)
Short circuit:
With Capacitor V
o
(V) = (V
in
* R
f
* * C
2
) / (L
w
*
2
* C 1) (14)
where R
f
is the feedback resistance, C is the reference capacitance, C
w
is the capacitance due to
the open circuited wire, and L
w
is the inductance due to the short circuited wire. Both C
w
and L
w

are directly proportional to the length of the wire. Both V
o
and Z are complex, and the reactive
part of Z (capacitance or inductance) can be found.
The circuit was tested for known capacitances ranging from 100 pF to 0.05 F. The input
voltage was 1 V at a frequency of 60 kHz. The frequency was chosen to be 60 kHz, because the
output at this frequency was less distorted and easier to do phase measurements on. The voltage
output was measured using an oscilloscope, and the capacitances were calculated using equation
11
(12). The close comparison of the actual capacitance and the measured capacitance is shown in
Figure 6. The voltage output of the oscillator is plotted with respect to the length of the wire in
Figure 7. It can be seen that the change in voltage is linear with the length of the open circuited
wires without the reference capacitor (100 pF) over 4.5m, and the theoretical value matched very
well for wires up to 450 cm long. The reference capacitor makes the response nonlinear as
shown in Figure 7. For the circuit with the reference capacitor, there is overlap on the output
voltage for open and short circuits for wires longer than 450 cm, which limits the range of this
sensor. Changing the capacitor changes the range of the sensor. There is also an ambiguous
region around 50cm for the open circuited wire with the reference capacitor. Therefore, it is nice
to use the circuit without capacitor for the open circuited tests.
From Figure 7, it can be seen that output is not consistent for short circuited wires. The
sensor is very stable for open circuited measurements for wires over 4.5m long. The maximum
length of a short-circuited wire that can be measured is 425 cm. Beyond that the change in
voltage is very small and cannot be measured accurately. Also the circuit is very sensitive to the
position/posture of short circuited wires.

7. 555 Timer Circuit for Open and Short Circuit.
A 555 timer set up as an astable multi-vibrator is a well-known method for locating faults
on open circuited wire. [17]. The frequency output for open circuited wires is
frequency = 1.443/[(R
A
+ 2R
B
)C] (15)
The circuit must be adapted to test short circuited wires as shown in Figure 8. The values used
are Ra=1k sign and Rb=10M to obtain a 50% oscillation duty cycle. This circuit can
distinguish between open and short circuits, because a short circuited wire produces DC output
12
with the timer for open circuited wire in [17], and an open circuited wire produces DC output
with the timer circuit in Figure 8 for short circuited wire. The period of the output is plotted in
Figure 9, and both open and short circuited configurations are shown to be very linear. The
maximum length that we have tested is 60 meters long. In theory this circuit can locate faults on
wires up to about 1000m long wire with a little modification of the value of Ra and Rb in Figure
8.

III. Comparison of Methods and Conclusion
The different methods discussed in this paper are summarized in Table 2. All circuits
were more accurate for open circuits (capacitance) than for short circuits (inductance), which is
understandable since the parasitic inductance near the wire is strongly impacted by its
surroundings. The 555 timer and differential amplifier can locate both open and short circuited
wires with the least error. Maximum errors for the timer for open and shorts were 5.3cm and
20cm, and for the differential amplifier were 7.93cm and 28.43cm, respectively.
Calibration of these systems can be done by measuring wires of the type that will later be
tested and storing the coefficients of a linear fit to that data. If no calibration is done, and the
average values are used, errors on the order of 1~5% for open and 1~20% for short would be
seen, so it is strongly recommended that the type of wire and its gauge be known and used for
calibration.
Some of the important limitations of all of these methods is that if the capacitance or
inductance of the wire changes along its path (such as from nearby metallic components on
unshielded or untwisted wires, significant changes in the orientation or separation of the wire and
its associated ground or paired wire, or from discrete components added to the system), the
13
capacitance or inductance of these additional effects will also be measured and will create errors
in the length measurements. Also, these methods are not suitable for location of faults on
branched wires, as only the lumped capacitance or inductance is being measured. In spite of
these limitations, these simple and inexpensive circuits can provide excellent location of open
and short circuits on wires. They are ideally suited for integration in handheld test equipment
(which has been done in our lab), and can provide an easy-to-use alternative to the manual search
methods used today.

Acknowledgement
Support for this project has been provided by the Air Force Research Laboratory.

14

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17
List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1. Wire length vs. measured capacitance of 13 different open circuited air craft wires using
HP4262A LCR meter. The specifics of each wire are given in Table 1.

Table 1. Measurement results of capacitance and inductance of wires

Figure 2. Wire length vs. measured inductance of 13 different short-circuited air craft wires using
HP4262A LCR meter. The specifics of each wire are given in Table 1.

Figure 3. Two inverter oscillator for open and short circuit wire measurements.
Figure 4. Length versus period of output for open and short circuited wires.
Figure 5. Difference amplifier sensor for open and short circuit wire fault detector.
Figure 6. Actual vs. measured capacitance with the differential amplifier using LM741CN.
Figure 7. Length vs. voltage for open and short circuited wire with the differential amplifier.
Figure 8. Timer sensor for short circuit fault detection.
Figure 9. Timer output period vs. length of the twisted pair shielded wire M27500-24SE2S23.
Table 2. Comparison of methods for detecting both open and short circuits.

.
18
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
x 10
10
C
a
p
a
c
i
t
a
n
c
e

V
a
l
u
e

(
F
)
Wire length in meters
Coax
Shielded
Twisted
Parallel
2 Single

Figure 1. Wire length vs. measured capacitance of 13 different open circuited air craft wires
using HP4262A LCR meter. The specifics of each wire are given in Table 1.


19

Table 1. Measurement results of capacitance and inductance of wires
Wire Type Part Number Line Type for Figures pF/m uH/m
Coax C4931-22L

339 0.161
Twisted shielded quadruple M27500-22SC4S23

106.5 0.517
Twisted shielded triple M27500-24SC3S23

100.5 0.55
Twisted pair shielded M27500-2408T23

102.4 0.544
Twisted pair shielded M27500-24SE2S23

84.7 0.614
Thick twisted triple M81381-11-12

90.29 0.467
twisted pair C4932-26L2

49.61 0.659
twisted pair M27500-24SC2U00

47.28 0.587
parallel pair speaker wire 20 gage

49.27 0.785
thick single pair in a
bundle
M81381-11-12
(C4932-12N3)

49.34 0.651
single pair in a bundle M81381/7-20-2
(C4928-20)

31.76 0.976
single pair in a bundle M22759/16-22-90

35.15 0.924

single pair in a big bundle M22759-43-22-9

23.36 1.08
20
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
x 10
6
I
n
d
u
c
t
a
n
c
e

V
a
l
u
e

(
H
)
Wire length in meters
Coax
Shielded
Twisted
Parallel
2 Single

Figure 2. Wire length vs. measured inductance of 13 different short-circuited air craft wires using
HP4262A LCR meter. The specifics of each wire are given in Table 1.



21


Figure 3. Two inverter oscillator for open and short circuit wire measurements.

0 100 200 300 400 500 600
1.5
2
2.5
3
x 10
7
Length (cm)
P
e
r
i
o
d

(
s
e
c
)
test 1
test 2
test 3
open curve fit
short curve fit

Figure 4. Length versus period of output for open and short circuited wires.

22

Figure 5. Difference amplifier sensor for open and short circuit wire fault detector.

23
10
10
10
9
10
8
10
7
10
10
10
9
10
8
10
7
M
e
a
s
u
r
e
d

C
a
p
a
c
i
t
a
n
c
e

w
i
t
h

D
i
f
f
.

A
m
p

(
F
)
Actual Capacitance (F)

Figure 6. Actual vs. measured capacitance with the differential amplifier using LM741CN.
24
0 200 400 600 800
0
0.5
1
1.5
Length (cm)
V
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)
test 1
test 2
test 3
Measured without Cap
Theoratical without Cap
Open with Capacitor
Short with Capacitor
Open w/o Capacitor

Figure 7. Length vs. voltage for open and short circuited wire with the differential amplifier.

25

0~10M ohm
Output
RG
V1
5Vdc
Ra
1K
Wire
U3
555
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
GND
TRIGGER
OUTPUT
RESET
CONTROL
THRESHOLD
DISCHARGE
VCC
Rb
10M
C1
0.1u

Figure 8. Timer sensor for short circuit fault detection.

0 2 4 6 8
0
50
100
150
200
250
Period in ms
L
e
n
g
t
h

i
n

i
n
c
h
e
s
Open Length = T(ms) * 34.179216.364
Short Length = T(ms) * 372.585157.4588
Open Data
Open Fitting Line
Short Data
Short Fitting Line

Figure 9. Timer output period vs. length of the twisted pair shielded wire M27500-24SE2S23.

26


Table 2. Comparison of methods for detecting both open and short circuits.



Open ( Cm ) Short (Cm)

Sensors


Max.
Length

Max.
Error

Min
Error


Max Length

Max.
Error

Min Error
Two Inverter
Oscillator
600 63.19 1.9117 255
(C=50 pF)
46.62 0.8414
Difference
Amplifier
225 7.93 0.0984 225
(C=100 pF)
28.43 0.0134
555 Timer

Less than
infinity
5.3 0.01 Less than
infinity
20 0.5